What does this descriptor look like at different levels?
Select and use resources is the fourth descriptor of the third standard of the Australian Professional Standards for Teachers.
This focus area is all about the resources that you use with your students in your lessons.
Teachers use a wide range of resources every day. From worksheets to digital platforms, videos to physical manipulatives. Everything that students interact with that their teacher has carefully selected is a resource.
See more: Australian Professional Standards for Teachers Terminology Explained
As you become more experienced in this area, you’ll gather a wider range of resources. Maybe one day you’ll discover ClickView and add a whole new set of resources to your repertoire. Maybe another day you do professional learning on how to use EdPuzzle and have a whole new way of delivering resources to your students. The more resources you have access to and are familiar with, the more options you have when trying to meet the needs of your students.
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Graduate
What does it look like?
At the Graduate level, teachers are expected to demonstrate knowledge of a range of resources, including ICT, that engage students in their learning.
As with most standards at the Graduate level, here you’ll only need to show that you know what you’re doing, and not necessarily do it.
You need to reach the Graduate level of every focus area before you can graduate with a teaching degree in Australia. Because of this, you need to be able to demonstrate that you’re working at the Graduate career stage with very limited teaching experience.
To meet this descriptor, you must demonstrate that you know about the range of resources out there. You don’t necessarily need to be making your own yet, either.
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What evidence can I collect?
Because you need to reach this career stage before you graduate, your university should give you plenty of opportunities to create evidence.
For this focus area, the evidence is pretty simple. To show that you know about a range of resources to engage students, it can be as simple as a list of resources that you’ve researched. You do want to make sure that you’ve picked a range (some ICT, some not, etc.) and a brief description of each with how you could apply them to your lessons.
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Proficient
What does it look like?
At the Proficient level, teachers are expected to select and/or create and use a range of resources, including ICT, to engage students in their learning.
You now need to use these resources in your lessons at the Proficient level. Again, it doesn’t require you to make your resources. You can fulfil this descriptor even if you are only selecting relevant and useful resources for your class.
What evidence can I collect?
For this career stage, you’ll need some evidence that you selected and used some resources. You’ll also need to show that these resources were well selected; that they engaged your students in their learning. These two different points need two different types of evidence.
To show that you selected and used a range of resources, you could use:
- Lesson or unit plans that detail the resources that you will use.
- Lesson observations with notes from your observer about what resources you used.
Regardless of which option you choose, ensure that it shows a range. You don’t just want to have evidence of one lesson where you didn’t use digital resources, as this would not meet this descriptor. Keep in mind that you could use a number of different lesson observations, though.
See more: Lesson Observations – Common Questions and Concerns for Teachers.
As evidence of student engagement with your resources, you could include:
- Samples of student work that show how students have used your resources.
- Lesson observation notes about how the students engaged in lesson.
- Comments from students. Photos may also be appropriate in certain situations.
Whatever pieces of evidence you choose, make sure that you annotate them. This will ensure that your evidence set links to the descriptor.
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Highly Accomplished
What does it look like?
At the Highly Accomplished level, teachers are expected to assist colleagues to create, select and use a wide range of resources, including ICT, to engage students in their learning.
As with most focus areas at the Highly Accomplished level, you’ll now need to support your colleagues.
The first step in doing this is to become very good at selecting resources yourself. Before you start thinking about whether you want to become a Highly Accomplished Teacher, you should make sure that you are familiar with a wide range of teaching resources and tried them in a range of contexts.
The key part in helping your colleagues select and use resources is applying what you know to their context. You’ll need to know a lot about how to use the resource, but you’ll also need to know whether it will work for this teacher.
What evidence can I collect?
You’ll need to have evidence that another teacher has used a resource that you’ve recommended. You’ll also need evidence that you helped them transition to using it.
Lesson observations or samples of student work are fantastic pieces of evidence. In this case, they will support that another teacher has used a particular resource. As for how you supported the teacher, the evidence will depend on what this looks like.
You may have presented about a particular resource in a meeting or run a workshop. In this case, you might have slides or speakers notes to show that you did this. You may have worked one-on-one with a teacher in more of a mentoring role, in which case meeting minutes or email communication might be more appropriate.
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Lead
What does it look like?
At the Lead level, teachers are expected to model exemplary skills and lead colleagues in selecting, creating and evaluating resources, including ICT, for application by teachers within or beyond the school.
This descriptor is very similar to the one above for Highly Accomplished Teachers. The main change now is that you need to lead your colleagues, and you can share your resource knowledge beyond your school.
Applying things beyond your school is an interesting point. There is a wide range of subject-area professional associations out there that are always looking for volunteers or people to share their knowledge. Getting in touch with them is key to building your skills as a teacher and leader.
See more: Why Students Plagiarise: It Isn’t Always About Cheating
What evidence can I collect?
The trick to providing evidence of this descriptor is to show that you have led your colleagues. This is different to simply supporting them.
Project proposals are a great piece of evidence for this. Pitch an idea to explore using a new resource to your Principal with your plans laid out and you’ll have fantastic evidence against this standard. You can also use communication between you and your colleagues, but it is a little more difficult to prove that you have “led” with these evidence sets.
You can also include evidence from any professional learning that you’ve done. If you’ve shared your experience or research on a particular resource at a conference, any notes, slides, etc., that you used will also make great evidence against this descriptor.
To learn more about the other descriptors in the third standard of the APST, use the following links:
